The Future's Past
by T-R-Us
Summary: After Rose's death, she finds herself in the company of a remarkable girl, one with the power to give her a second chance - on the Titanic!
1. Chapter One

**Title: **The Future's Past  
**Rating: **T  
**Authoress: **T-R-Us  
**Setting:** AU (Semi-Modern, Semi-Historical)

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Titanic, especially any of the stuff from James Cameron's movie, and even moreso the history. I can't really hold complete claim to Chelsea Davenport, who although an original character, is largely inspired by Susannah Simon from Meg Cabot's Mediator Series.

**Summary:** After Rose's death, she finds herself in the company of a remarkable girl, one with the power to give her a second chance - on the Titanic!

**Authoress' Notes: **Please don't let Chelsea's character deter you from reading the story – aside from essentially being responsible for what happens, she only actually makes a few appearances and is definitely not a Mary Sue in any way. (She's about as much of a Mary Sue as Thomas Andrews, and contributes about as much to the story as he does to the movie.)

**Giving Credit Where It's Due:** I have to thank 'l'Ange d'Erik de la Musique' for giving me a new title when the original one turned out to already be in use, (and also for putting up with frequent rants regarding a) Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, b) Caledon's greatness and need for redemption, c) Jack never getting what he deserves, d) so on and so forth. Thank you!

* * *

**Chapter One**

_Heavy droplets of rain poured down in sheets onto the deck of the Carpathia, pummelling the already rough water of the Atlantic, soaking those who bore the misfortune of being outside. They were women, mostly. Widows who stood at the ship's rail as though waiting to see another lifeboat, a raft bearing their missing husbands, sons, brothers and fathers. All of them exuded a quiet air of hopefulness that any moment now the fog would break and there the rest of the passengers would be. Few cried and what tears did mar their sombre faces were masked by the rain. Occasionally, a steward or fellow survivor would extricate themselves from the warmth inside to attempt to draw these unfortunates into the dining halls, but for most it seemed that they would continue to keep their vigil until the Carpathia landed in New York in two days._

There were other mourners, however, for whom the truth was clear even before Captain Rostron ordered an impromptu memorial service for the lost passengers and crew members of the ill-fated Titanic. The truth was undeniable: those who were not onboard the Carpathia were gone.

The knowledge of so many deaths had been a shock almost to all – but not to Rose DeWitt Bukater. Thomas Andrews – God rest his soul – had informed her of the shortage in lifeboats long before the iceberg was sighted, when such an incident was still considered unfathomable. But she had been there when there were no boats left. No hope and no future save the imminent plunge that the Titanic promised before she finally sank beneath the waves forever.

And yet she had lived. If it hadn't been for the bravery and leadership of Mr. Harold Lowe, the ship's former fifth officer, she would have been left to slowly perish like those around her had.

Like Jack.

Oh God, Jack, her beautiful, wonderful Jack. Without him, she wouldn't have stood a chance, but his selflessness had come at a cost.

Rose's singular regret for the remaining duration of her life was that she had not done more during those last precious moments with him. She should have shared the makeshift raft, taken turns in and out of the water, continued to move, to talk. She'd been too weak. Too weak to even carry a conversation with him until lifeboat no. 14 arrived.

Like many who experienced an unparalleled trauma in their lives, Rose knew as she closed her eyes one last time before death that if given a chance, she would do it all over...

***

Tap.

Taptaptap.

Click.

The basic functions of Chelsea's laptop seemed to echo through the empty house at a much louder volume than normal. This didn't bother her, of course. With no one around, there was no one to hear and better yet, no one to complain. Though frankly, if someone did comment on the excessive noise, she wouldn't have cared anyway. Chelsea Davenport was not someone people would call a considerate person. Or a compassionate one.

Taptaptaptap. Double space. Left click.

The rest of the family had bustled out earlier that morning to visit Chelsea's great aunt, who had been institutionalized years ago for claiming an ability to "see dead people", a la the Sixth Sense.

Chelsea knew better than that, however. _She_ certainly wasn't going to tell anyone that great aunt Shelby wasn't just a raving mad 92-year old. Or that she herself shared the same paranormal ability. No, she had better things to do. Study for a cumulative quiz on function notation, pine over a sweater she had on back order from Abercrombie and Fitch. Watch grass grow.

Tap. Taptaptap. Taptaptaptaptap.

Chelsea slammed the screen shut with a sharp click. "Stupid thing froze again," she muttered to herself, yanking on the power cable, knowing that pulling the plug served the same function as hitting the power button. The laptop battery pack hadn't worked in months.

Grumbling about her ability to spend the morning chatting with George Washington but not have the financial capacity to afford a decent computer, Chelsea twisted in her rolling desk chair. As a job, communicating with the dead simply didn't have much of a pay-off. Or _any_, really.

Which is why Chelsea had developed a number of strict guidelines for dealing with her all too frequent ghostly visitors. Firstly, ghosts didn't talk to _her. She_ talked to _them_.

"Ugh, where are you?" Rifling through the papers on her desk, Chelsea shuffled aside pages and pages of school notes in search of her study sheet. Direct, selfish and domineering that she was, Chelsea had no tolerance for poor grades. Grades she earned more for keeping up appearances as a "superior being" than for having any real interest in her senior year classes. She'd developed a somewhat hard-hitting attitude early in life, something she applied to all aspects of existence. She frequently said exactly what she thought and did only the things she chose to, with the exception of the whole 'talking to ghosts' gig, that being nothing more than some sort of freakish birth anomaly. But Chelsea still endeavoured maintained a high degree of control - as much as she could - when it came to that particular part of her life.

Example: as she reached into her desk drawer to pull out a pen, she was pointedly ignoring the elderly ghost who had been standing just behind her left shoulder for the past fifteen minutes. But she had important things to do, much more important than speaking to this particular ghost. _This_ woman was dead and had all the time in the cosmos to wait for service, while Chelsea not only had a math quiz in the morning, she also needed to finish updating her tabs on a recent paranormal encounter.

Chelsea Davenport couldn't just talk to ghosts. She also possessed the ability to send them _back_. Back to their former lives to live a portion over. There were rules to this, too, of course, ones that hadn't even been made by Chelsea. It was a generally accepted fact that if she let someone have a "do-over" – which wasn't often – they couldn't do anything earth-shattering with their new lease on life. Score higher on the SAT's? Sure. _Not_ yell at a spouse moments before the heart attack that ended their life? Why not.

But prevent a serious tragedy from happening?

That was the biggest "no" of all.

No tragedy would mean no people dying, causing changes in economic structure, social patterns, population growth...

Besides, Chelsea was a sucker for tragedies.

"This can't be right..." In the moment between finishing the write-up on the ghost most recently sent back – to the RMS Titanic, so potential for slip-up was unsettlingly high – and starting a new task, Chelsea realized her visitor was mumbling to herself. "Where's Jack? He's supposed to be here. This can't be right..."

The woman was clearly distressed, which was unsurprising as she had just shown up in Chelsea's bedroom which must not have been where she assumed she would end up – heaven, most likely, the teen thought to herself. Chelsea hoped Jack was her grandson. Older ghosts like her were usually easier to handle. Most often they just wanted her to pass a message on to the grandkids – it's okay that you played on your PS3 and never came to visit me at the retirement center! In these cases, once Chelsea promised to relay the heartfelt memo, the ghosts usually passed on.

Whether she did it or not.

And most often it was a not.

"I don't understand... I thought I died..."

Unable to resist the scathing remark that demanded to be said, Chelsea turned to her visitor to say, "You _did_," then resumed filing away her notes into the appropriate sections of a binder.

In a voice much haughtier than Chelsea would have expected from such an old woman, she floored her with, "So you _can_ see me after all. Well if you're done ignoring me, could please tell me what's going on?" Apparently the old woman was more lucid than she had thought.

Although instinct told her she shouldn't simply cave in, Chelsea knew that the faster she got this over with, the sooner the ghost would be gone. "Rose Calvert, right? One hundred and one years old, one of the last living survivors of the Titanic, ironically died at its site."

Rose's eyes widened, though the effect was lost in her too tight, wrinkled face. "How do you –"

"Your picture was in the obituary." Chelsea spared a glance at her watch. Almost five. Her family would be home soon and though none of them would be able to see Mrs. Calvert, they _would_ be able to hear her speaking to her. And getting caught in a great aunt Shelby moment was not high on her to do list. "You obviously want to go back or you wouldn't be here. So what is it you want? Forget to write a will? Didn't see your great granddaughter before you died?"

There was a long pause while Rose appeared to process this. Chelsea resisted the urge to start ignoring her again.

"What?"

A sigh. If there was one thing Chelsea hated most it was repeating the stupid explanation about going back. But if she was going to be stuck here with the ancient Mrs. Rose Calvert for the next hour, she may as well make it easier on herself.

In less than a blink of an eye, Rose's appearance changed completely. Gone was the curly, white hair replaced with a rich, red mane, already neatly pinned behind her head. Her eyes just as blue and vibrant as they had always been remained unaltered, but the skin around them firmed, the wrinkles gone and her face rounder and smoother. Her body, rather than that of a century-old crone was that of a strong, sturdy young woman around Chelsea's own age. Her hands were soft, uncalloused and her complexion an unblemished, creamy white. She opened and closed her mouth one – two – three times, taking in what had happened.

Chelsea merely shrugged with indifference. "At least now we're getting somewhere."

**Closing Comments:** For those of you who read this the first time around, you might remember this chapter being in first person. As the rest of the fic is in third, I figured I ought to make this one conform to that standard. In doing so the chapter gained a new voice, which still sounds an awful lot like Chelsea explaining herself, albeit in the third person. Later chapters won't read like this as the focus shifts back over to Rose.  
Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

"At least now we're getting somewhere."

Chelsea cast a disimpassioned eye over her visitor. It hadn't been only Rose's body that changed at the teen's request, even her clothes, which Chelsea had initially written off as "old person clothing" were different. The outfit Rose was wearing now appeared much more form fitting and better suited to someone her age. The pin-striped suit with vest, tie and an extremely flamboyant, purple hat were clearly not from Chelsea's time period, and mentally she placed Rose's attire at the early 1910's, about the same time as the Titanic's luckless maiden voyage.

Although the physical change was the most prevalent, Chelsea was more interested in Rose's sudden burst of confidence, caused no doubt by the metamorphosis. Gone was the feisty but confused elderly woman and in her place stood someone who appeared just as self-assured as Chelsea, if a little out of her element.

"Tell me why I changed," Rose demanded. She didn't know what it was about the unusual teen that demanded her unwilling respect, but she did know that Chelsea would not have been out of place in the highest circles of society in her time.

"Why you changed?" The teen looked away, annoyed that Rose was making her give in so easily. "It's Fate's way of giving me a hand," she replied, still sounding more than a little disinterested, though the facade was quickly wearing away. "Your body has physically manifested itself to the form you were in at the point you wish to return to, whether you're physically conscious of when that time is or not."

The explanation was enough to make Rose's head spin. "But this is how I looked when..."

Chelsea's light blue eyes rolled dramatically, "When you were on the Titanic? _Imagine that_!"

"You are incredibly rude, did you know that?" Rose was putting into use the flippant tones she hadn't used since leaving high society and the Titanic behind her. It seemed to be the only way to hold her own against Chelsea. "Can you help me or not?"

"I can. But will I is the question you meant to ask." Chelsea wasn't entirely certain how she felt about this Mrs. Rose Calvert, but at least this rebellious, younger manifestation was more interesting than the older one had been.

"Don't tell me there's a fee. I have nothing to pay you with," a fact which Rose found particularly ironic. Oh, mother. You were so determined to die rich, but see what comes of it? Startled that she would think of her mother for the first time in years, Rose wondered fleetingly if she too had ended up here at her death. Despite knowing that the woman was most certainly not in the room, she couldn't help but give a cursory glance around it. "You said you could send me back. How? What do I have to do?"

No ghost had ever surprised Chelsea quite so much as this one did. Sure, there'd once been a pushy Chinese emperor who had been pretty demanding, as had many others, but this was the first time she'd seen such a dramatic change of character. For a woman who had been practically snivelling moments before, Rose had become positively business-like. It was fascinating. "You want to go to Titanic? I can send you to Titanic, but there are a couple of things you need to know."

She was back in her element now, ordering ghosts to do what _she_ said was how it was supposed to work, not the other way around. "You don't get to change _anything_ without my permission, and I do mean _anything_. That ship has to sink, so no telling people she's going down or to 'watch out for ice', even as a joke. No cryptic messages, either. You mess that one up and then Fate comes out there and gives me a hard time, which sucks." She shot Rose a level stare that said she meant business. "You get Fate on my case and I'll have you exorcized clear out of existence."

Even with an already ghostly pallor, Rose paled at this.

"Next, you try to tell anyone about ghosts, or the future and I'll make you relive the worst moments of your life – ten times over." Chelsea grinned menacingly, she loved to empower herself. "And number three, tell Mr. Harold Lowe that if he doesn't come and speak to me, I'm pulling him out, whether he wants it or not."

"Mr. Lowe?" Rose's eyes widened. "The officer? You sent him back, too?"

Chelsea shrugged, smiling enigmatically, "He's not the only one who's been sent back there before. I know one ghost who spends _all_ their time on the Titanic. Ship sinks, they go back to when they first boarded. It's kind of sick, really." And it was causing her a lot of headaches from the folks upstairs. Fate wasn't especially keen on the idea that this person could simply live life in a feedback loop, but it seemed to Chelsea that they were waiting for something. Something to happen, or maybe someone in particular. Snobby and generally unhelpful that she may be, Chelsea couldn't deny that she was curious to see just what or who that thing was.

As Chelsea mulled the thought over in her head, Rose had some thinking of her own to do as she took in all that the teen had already said to her. It was a lot to remember, but something nagged at her past all the instructions and rules that had just hit her in a barrage. She opened her mouth to ask _who_ it was that had been sent back as well, but found herself being cut off as though Chelsea had read her mind. Perhaps she had.

"Don't expect me to tell you who that is. You aren't going back to start a 'Reliving the Titanic Experience' fan club." She faced off squarely against the ghost, both at a fairly even height, intending to be rid of her immediately. "Ready to go back to Titanic?"

Rose faltered, this seemed so sudden. There was too much to digest. "But – but what am I supposed to do when I get there?"

This earned her another shrug from Chelsea who turned away. "How the hell should I know?"

* * *

Darkness. Rose almost laughed at the poetic cliché of it all. Of course it would be dark – why wouldn't it? It seemed like something out of a book or a film rather than the actual events of her life. (Did she even still count as living?) Now that she had a moment to think about it, Rose decided that the whole thing was unthinkable. Ghosts. Returning to life. Time travel. Ridiculous. She had been raised with firm Christian morals and beliefs – how could she be taken in by all of this?

How could she have possibly believed that the teenager was telling her the truth? How embarrassing! She could have kicked herself when she realized she didn't even know the girl's name. How awful. How could she have fallen for all of this?

The very idea that she could actually return to her past life. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

That's all it was. Pathetic and humiliating.

But how wonderful if it could be true.

Against her better judgment, she let her thoughts dwell over the possibility. If it were true... If it were true, she'd be able to see Jack again and more than just see him – hear him, hold him. For years she had been repressing the memories, pushing away the misery to live the life Jack had wanted for her. Without his presence constantly weighing on her mind she had succeeded as an actress, as a wife, a mother and a grandmother. She had retained her lucidity after a century of life, a feat most people could not hold claim to.

Would seeing Jack again set her back emotionally to that single moment of absolute grief she had let herself feel before putting it all behind her?

Did it matter?

She could have laughed outright at this, if she didn't think the sound would shatter the dampening effect of the darkness around her. Of course it didn't matter, because none of this was real. Was it?

Rose was beginning to have trouble keeping her thoughts straight. She could see nothing in the darkness, but as her stream of consciousness ended, she wished whoever it was snoring in the background would either wake up or be quiet.

... snoring?

She opened her mouth to question the sound's presence, but instead choked on a mouthful of air. She had heard the snore before, she was sure of it. Her mother, for example, had sounded exactly...

Like.

That.

A small gasp forced its way out of her mouth and her eyes widened in the darkness of what she now realized was the hotel room where she, Cal, her mother and their servants had stayed the night before boarding the Titanic.

It had worked.

**End Chapter Two**


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

"So let me get this straight," Chelsea shot her newest ghostly visitor with a level, but annoyed look, "You _have_ to go back?" If there was anything she hated, it was ghosts telling her what to do. All she could do now was try to ignore the man, who had spent the past half hour _begging_ to be returned to his life. "No way, all right? I said 'no'. Now beat it!"

"I have to save her," he snarled at her in response, and Chelsea reflexively took a step back from him.

"We all have people to save, bud. Why don't you just go back over to your cloud, or your grave or wherever it is that you dead people come from and – " Chelsea was silenced mid-sentence by the heavy hand that descended upon her throat, effectively constricting her air flow.

"Send. Me. Back."

Meeting the man's steely gaze with a defiant glare of her own, Chelsea managed to choke out a sharp "No!" before her oxygen was cut off completely.

* * *

Rose wasn't entirely certain what she had expected from the premise of going back to her past life. A little more fanfare, maybe. Flashing lights, floating clocks, that sort of thing. It was the sudden "Poof! You're there!" that had thrown her off so much. Now that she was definitely here though, what was she supposed to do?

Save Jack, of course! Piped up the voice at the back of her head, which until recently had been the one loudly doubting the entire affair.

Yes. Yes, saving Jack seemed right.

But _how_?

"Miss Bolt, if it isn't too _inconvenient_ for you to perform the task that you were hired to do, might you wake my fiancée? Preferably before the ship sets sail without us?"

Cal. How strange it was to think that name, to hear that voice. He could easily prove to be the biggest problem in all of Rose's plans, though that wasn't to say that he had been especially helpful the first time around. Rose blinked in the direction of the closed bedroom door, behind which her maid and fiancé were speaking. That was a funny thought, the "first time around". Strange, but not distressing.

Just. Funny.

"Yes, Mr. Hockley."

Poor Trudy. She had been only a little older than Rose when she started as her maid. Having been part of the Hockley household for years prior to the change in status, Rose was certain that she was no stranger to Cal's aggression, just as she herself knew how violent his temper could be. It was apparent, however, that Trudy Bolt suffered worse at his hands than Rose ever had. Or... would? With the single exception of the time he had struck her.

Or hadn't?

A shake of her head seemed to clear her thoughts effectively enough, and she pushed the confusing muddle out of her mind in order to focus on more important things. Such as the doorknob, which was gently twisting as the door was pushed forward.

"Miss Rose – oh, you're awake," Trudy was more than a little surprised to see her mistress already up, but after the initial shock, made no further mention of the sudden change in behavior. "Would you like assistance in getting dressed?"

Rose was about to shake her head "no", when she remembered the whalebone corset she had worn up until turning her back on society. Upper class society, at least. She had gone more than eighty years thinking she would never have to subject her body to the hated apparatus again, only to be proven wrong now. "Yes, actually. Yes, thank you."

They fell into a familiar silence as Trudy helped to lace up Rose's stays, then assist her into the outfit Cal had purchased for her to wear while boarding – the same outfit, coincidentally, that she had been wearing when she last saw Chelsea. It was a beautiful suit and Rose could still remember admiring it the first time she had seen it, eighty years ago.

Or had it been two _weeks_ ago?

Blinking away more of the confused thoughts, she looked over the ensemble more thoroughly than she had when it appeared on her a few hours ago.

She had loved the rich violet coloring from the very start, the dark purple stripes that stood out beautifully against the white twill fabric and the royal cuffs, lapel, buttons and belt that were all the same color. When Cal had first offered to buy the outfit for her as they passed it in a storefront, Rose had been startled by his generosity. It was an expensive suit, what with the tiny rows of pearls hand sewn into the collar and the Milan straw hat. It seemed, however, that this was only the beginning to how far Cal would go to please her – or be pleased _by_ her, Rose wasn't entirely sure which.

The maid smiled, albeit nervously. "You look lovely, miss." It had always been one of Rose's greatest regrets that she had never been close friends with this woman. In fact, she didn't even know what became of her at the end of it all. Did she survive the sinking? Rose hoped that she would get the chance to remedy the situation this time around.

"Thank you, Trudy. I only hope Cal will agree with you."

* * *

The Southampton pier was crowded, perhaps more so than at the boarding of any other ship Rose had sailed on, but her memory of other such voyages was considerably foggy after so many decades. The Titanic had been the only one important enough to stay fresh in her aging mind.

As the white Renault bearing Cal, her mother and herself neared the terminal for the first class passengers, the seventeen year old was met with a sudden sense of wrongness. There, just ahead, floated the Titanic. Weighing 46,000 tonnes of steel and bearing four huge smokestacks, she was docked in all of her glory, and yet Rose couldn't seem to shake the image of the ship tilted at a hideous angle, perpendicular to the water and disappearing rapidly into the ocean. She had been on the ship at the time and hadn't actually seen it in that position – but others had. It was an image that quickly became iconic in the years following the disaster, but this was not the wrongness that Rose felt.

As she stepped out of the Renault and moved past the chauffeur who held the door open for her, she noticed something else. Something almost as disturbing as the doomed vessel in front of her.

They were _on time_.

Chelsea had warned her to change nothing and here she was, not a day spent back in her old life and she had already managed to interfere with the past! Wracking her brains to remember why they'd been late the first time, Rose seemed to recall something about changing her clothes.

Yes, that was right. She had wanted to wear all black, but Cal had insisted that she change. Now it was simply an amusing memory that was never to have happened, though Rose could have laughed at the irony of it. It would have been more fitting to just wear the black.

I hope this doesn't change too much, she thought to herself as her mother climbed out of the car behind her and Cal's door was opened by his valet. She didn't want Chelsea to interfere before she even had a chance to _see_ Jack. The thought had her looking around expectantly. Of course Jack wouldn't be anywhere near the first class boarding area, but perhaps if she rose on her toes she could see over the heads of the crowd.

She tried, but knew there was no way she'd be able to see through the hundreds of people gathered to see the luxuriously gigantic ocean liner off on its maiden voyage. She would simply have to take heart in the knowledge that Jack was somewhere out there, waiting for her.

Well, she reasoned, not waiting for her. He didn't even _know_ her yet. But he would. In just a day or two they would have met and, Rose held back a blush, fallen in love. Yes. Somewhere amid all of these people was her Jack Dawson.

"Rose?"

She whipped around, startled. Cal was staring at her expectantly as though this were all a play and she had missed her cue. She made an effort to look as though she were seeing the Titanic for the first time and glanced back up at it, demurely. "It – ah – doesn't look any bigger than the..." She pondered for a moment, naming the first ship that came to mind and hoping that Cal wouldn't question it. "The Normandie."

"The what?" He stared back at her, blankly.

Rose sighed. Apparently this was going to be much harder than she had thought.

**End Chapter Three**

**Closing Comments:** The SS Normandie was the largest and fastest ship in the world – in the 1930's. She was about 150 feet longer than the Titanic, ten feet taller and had three additional decks. The Titanic's maximum speed was about 23 knots, whereas the Normandie's was 32. The Titanic's course was to go from Southampton to New York, and the Normandie's course was between the same points but most importantly, the Normandie _didn't _sink.

Though she was set on fire...


End file.
